


don't talk to me or any of my fourteen children ever again

by meregalaxiesandgods



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Families of Choice, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Ukai IS the father, Ukai immediately pulling a Jason Momoa:, hell hath no fury like a volleyball coach who's just pseudo-adopted fourteen teenagers, homophobia but Ukai shuts that shit down, no no no no no. by all means speak your mind. you got a problem with my boys?, some random: yeah Karasuno's not that good actually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29143536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meregalaxiesandgods/pseuds/meregalaxiesandgods
Summary: Ukai Keishin was not—and had no interest in becoming—a father. He’d somehow become responsible for fourteen children regardless.
Relationships: Azumane Asahi/Nishinoya Yuu, Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Takeda Ittetsu/Ukai Keishin, Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi, Ukai Keishin & Karasuno Volleyball Club
Comments: 117
Kudos: 368





	1. "go the fuck to sleep"

**Author's Note:**

> hi! so I have come to the conclusion that Ukai IS a dad, and I wanted to write about it. there will probably be fourteen chapters, one for each member of the volleyball club (yes I'm counting the managers because they are precious to me). please enjoy!

Ukai Keishin was not—and had no interest in becoming—a father. 

There were a number of exceptionally logical reasons for this. 

Firstly, Ukai didn’t actually enjoy the company of children—in fact, he found children to be generally unpleasant. They were loud, and rude, and annoying; and, to top it all off, had the baffling ability to become sticky in places that no person should ever become sticky. 

Secondly, children were disruptive. Ukai had a routine to his days, one that he very much appreciated, and he dreaded the thought of his (mostly) peaceful existence being disturbed by a pack of quarrelsome brats. Children, invariably, asked questions. Ukai hated being asked questions, especially nonsensical ones that he couldn’t answer.

Thirdly, Ukai hadn’t even been able to keep the goldfish his brother gave him as a joke alive, and so had much less faith in his ability to look after a child. Children, after all, were usually more intelligent than fish, and quite a bit faster on their feet, too. 

For these reasons, Ukai had for many years deliberately and successfully avoided putting himself in situations where he was responsible for children. He declined his aunt’s requests to babysit; he lost the invitations to his friends’ children’s birthday parties; he used protection. He managed twenty six—happily childless—years. 

Of course, all his careful strategizing went out the window the moment he agreed to coach the Karasuno Men’s VBC on a permanent basis. 

At first, he didn’t think it would be that bad. His team were highschoolers; surely they could look after themselves, right?

Wrong.

It took Ukai approximately two and a half days at Karasuno to realize that the VBC was only functional through sheer willpower, spite, and their Captain’s impressive lung capacity. Half the team were unapologetically reckless monsters who didn’t know the meaning of the word fear, and the other half were merely pretending to be responsible so they could get away with doing something ill-advised the moment his back was turned. 

It proved exhausting, looking after them. Ukai sometimes felt like he was trying to empty the ocean with a leaky bucket, trying to keep one kid or another from dying or panicking or supergluing their hands together. He could’ve made things much, much easier for himself if he confined his responsibilities to the team to the volleyball court—if he was their coach, and only their coach, and nothing more. If he maintained his distance.

But Ukai had never believed in doing things halfway. 

He couldn’t maintain his distance, he  _ had _ to get involved, because Hinata didn’t eat right, dammit, and Kinoshita would be twice the player he already was if he gained some confidence in himself, and Tsukishima would care more if someone just gave him a shove in the right direction—

Ukai Keishin was not—and had no interest in becoming—a father. He’d somehow become responsible for fourteen children regardless.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

  1. Sawamura Daichi



In Ukai’s opinion, Sawamura Daichi made for an excellent team Captain. He had achieved that perfect, nebulous blend of considerate, inspiring, and absolutely not to be crossed: driven enough to arrange practice on his own, mature enough to ensure that everyone got home safely afterwards. Even outside of practice, he was the obvious foundation of the team—the outstretched hand that shielded them from harm, the solid ground beneath their feet. He was a leader, a mentor, a guide. 

(He had also, apparently, conducted an unholy bargain with some power of the night in exchange for the ability to quell his rowdier teammates with a single glance. Ukai was kind of jealous, honestly.) 

And—as exceptional as he was a Captain, Sawamura was an equally exceptional student and upperclassman. He got good grades in his college prep courses. He was never late. He bought the entire team meat buns once a week despite his rather meager allowance. In short, he was the kind of kid Ukai would’ve hated back in highschool, because he was doing it all, and doing it with apparent ease. 

But Ukai remembered being seventeen, and no seventeen-year-old—no matter how mature or responsible—had it together one hundred percent of the time.

He was proven right one cool night after evening practice, when he found himself leaving the school grounds later than usual. Normally, he departed right after practice ended so he could start his shift at the shop, but his mother had agreed to cover him once a week so he could stay and talk to Takeda about the team’s progress. 

(He was . . . proud of the little monsters, he really was.)

He stepped outside, already fishing around in his pocket for a cigarette, when he happened to glance back up at the school building. The clubroom light was still on, casting soft illumination out over the night-darkened yard. 

Ukai frowned. The third-years took it in turns to lock up, which meant that one of them was still up in there, doing god-knows-what at—he checked his phone—eleven o’clock at night. 

Growling with irritation, Ukai took the steps up to the clubroom two at a time. He clearly recalled telling all his players to go home and  _ rest _ at the end of practice. He also clearly recalled what the teenage libido was like, and fervently hoped he wasn’t about to walk in on some sort of late-night clandestine hookup. It would probably scar him for life. 

But when Ukai threw the club room door open, a reprimand already on his lips, he didn’t find an illicit teenage affair: he found Sawamura, alone, slumped over on one of the benches and obviously dead asleep. Ukai cursed and grabbed for the door, but he was too slow. It slammed into the opposite wall with a thud, rattling the lockers against one another in a screech of metal. 

To Sawamura’s credit, he didn’t flail or shout; he simply sat up, mumbled, “Mom, I’m  _ going _ ,” and then promptly fell off the bench. 

Ukai winced. More than one juvenile scuffle during his own time at Karasuno had taught him nothing if not that the floor in here was quite unforgiving. He crouched down to Sawamura’s level, and carefully peeled the piece of paper that had stuck to Sawamura’s face away from his cheek.

Sawamura, wakening to the abrupt realization that he was not in fact at home in his own bed, flushed a deep brick red. 

“Coach,” he said, burying his face in his hands. “Oh, gods. Coach, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how this happened—I was so tired—it won’t happen again, I  _ promis _ e—”

“Relax,” Ukai said gruffly. There were things worth fretting over—their chances at getting to Nationals, the truly concerning amount of yogurt drinks Kageyama consumed on a daily basis, the toothy grin on Tanaka’s face when he’d stuffed an unidentifiable package into his bookbag earlier—but this was not one of them. 

He glanced down at the paper he’d liberated from Sawamura’s cheek, raising his eyebrows at the neatly penned lists of warmup exercises for next week’s practices. Sawamura scrambled to his feet, collecting the rest of the scattered papers into a haphazard pile. 

“I’m sorry,” Sawamura said again, stiffly. He wouldn’t meet Ukai’s eyes. “I lost track of time. You trusted me to lock up, and I didn’t. There’s no excuse.” 

These kids. Ukai despaired of them. When he’d been seventeen, his primary concern had been seeing how much of his father’s sake he could sneak before he threw it all back up. Falling asleep in the club room—once!—wasn’t that big of a deal, in the larger scheme of things. 

“It’s fine,” Ukai said. “It happens. Now, about this.” He held the paper up, waiting for Sawamura’s eyes to reluctantly drag up to meet his. “You’ve been writing these out yourself?”

He’d assumed, when Sawamura had come prepared every week with lists of warmup exercises with which to lead practice, that he’d been reusing material from previous years, when Karasuno had actually  _ had _ a coach to take care of such things.

“Uh, yeah.” Sawamura fidgeted, the shadows under his eyes seeming to grow deeper by the moment. He was so  _ different _ around Ukai, all the unwavering confidence he used to motivate and/or intimidate his teammates fracturing into cautious respect. Sometimes, watching him command the court like a general at the head of an army, it was easy to forget he was just a kid. “Sorry; if they’re not good, I can rewrite them.”

He extended one hand for the paper. Ukai frowned, holding it out of his reach. “You really shouldn’t be doing this. This sort of thing is the coach’s responsibility. Not yours.”

“It’s fine,” Sawmaura said, still eyeing the paper in Ukai’s hand. “I don’t mind, Coach. It’s not that much trouble.”

Ukai snorted. “Really? I find you passed out up here from sheer exhaustion, and you’re gonna try and tell me it’s no trouble?”

Sawamura flushed. “I—”

Sighing, Ukai retrieved a cigarette from the interior pocket of his coat and lit it irritably. He knew enough about the VBC’s previous struggles from his grandfather, and what he hadn’t known, Takeda had easily filled in. Lacking a coach, lacking funding, lacking the connections to other schools that would have allowed the team to hone their skills, it had fallen to the third years to try and keep the club together any way they could. Which meant that, for many long months, Sawamura had been functioning as Coach as well as Captain. No wonder he’d been up here alone writing out the lists of warmup exercises. He hadn’t known to expect help from Ukai. Probably hadn’t even known that he was allowed to ask for it.

“Kid,” Ukai said, once the sweet smoke had filled his lungs and calmed some of his agitation. It was a bad habit, he knew, but he was now of the opinion that some bullheaded teenagers would probably kill him before the cancer had the chance. “The next time you find yourself doing this sort of thing, come to me first and ask if I can do it. This is not your job. You do enough.”

Sawamura’s face creased into honest confusion. “But I’m the Captain.”

“Yes,” Ukai said impatiently. “Which means you keep your batshit teammates from killing each other, you help plan strategy, you lead stretching. You don’t—”

He leaned forward, and pried the rest of the papers out of Sawamura’s hand.

“—write the warmup exercises. I do that.”

“But you already do so much,” Sawamura said, and it didn’t even sound sarcastic, coming from him. “I don’t want this to be a burden on you.”

Ukai almost laughed, puffing cigarette smoke out of his nose. “This whole job is a burden on me.”

Sawamura froze, and Ukai played his words back. Ah, shit. That hadn’t come out right.

“What I mean,” Ukai said hastily, “is that I get paid for this. And it’s a burden I accept willingly.” 

Well, mostly willingly. There had been the small matter of Takeda allowing him no peace for weeks on end, but Ukai had moved past that. He’d never admit it, but it had taken only a single practice for Ukai to fall a little bit in love with coaching, and with these ridiculous, impossible children and their ridiculous, impossible dreams. They reminded him of what he could have been. What he might have been, if he’d tried a little harder.

“Okay,” Sawamura said, still seeming reluctant. “But I can do it, really—”

Ukai almost groaned. He should’ve known Sawamura wasn’t going to let it go. The same intractability that made him an excellent Captain also made him kind of a pain in the ass to have an argument with. “How about this,” he proposed. “Takeda and I get together once a week to talk over the club’s progress. You can join for the first thirty minutes, and we’ll write these lists together.”

“Great,” Sawamura said, his face brightening, and Ukai had never seen a teenager look so enthused at the prospect of  _ more _ paperwork. “Thanks, Coach!”

“Whatever,” Ukai grumbled. “Now hurry up and get out of here. You need to eat and go the fuck to sleep.”

“Right!” Sawamura hastened to collect the rest of his belongings, stomping his feet into his street shoes. Ukai waited for him to flip the lights off and lock up, taking long drags off his cigarette. They set off together along the darkened street, Ukai already miles away and thinking about what he was going to have for dinner. His mother had been on his case recently about the amount of instant ramen he’d been consuming, but Ukai had eaten much worse and survived, so another night of rubbery noodles wasn’t going to kill him. Probably.

“Uh, Coach,” Sawamura said after a while. “Wasn’t that your turn back there?”

Ukai grunted. “Yeah.”

“Then why are you . . . “

“I’m walking you home,” Ukai said. “What if someone tried to kidnap you? There are all sorts of crazy people around these days.” And Ukai would know, seeing that an inordinate amount of said crazy people seemed to frequent his shop, especially on days he was already strung out and exhausted.

Sawamura frowned, consideringly. “Thanks. But, I think I’d be rather hard to kidnap, don’t you?”

That was probably true. Not only was Sawamura built like a brick shithouse, he had also faced down Sugawara high on a sugar rush and threatening to gut him with a spoon with no apparent fear. A man with a backbone like that was probably immune to being kidnapped. 

(Then Ukai thought about seeing Sawamura’s face on one of those milk boxes Kageyama was continuously buying him out of, and shuddered. Better safe than sorry.)

“Nothing’s impossible,” Ukai said neutrally, and smoothly redirected the conversation by asking, “Do you have any siblings?”

He was banking on the fact that Sawamura did. Anyone whose protective instincts were so finely honed that they could catch Nishinoya mid-tumble from the upper balcony had to have at least a brother or two. 

“Four,” Sawamura said, “All younger.”

Ukai choked on an inhale, sputtering smoke into the night. 

“Yeah,” Sawamura said, sounding resigned. “I think that’s why I’m . . . like this.”

There was the faintest hint of guilt in his tone. He was still clearly upset with himself for falling asleep in the clubroom earlier, probably beating himself up for “failing” in his duties. They slowed to a stop in front of what Ukai assumed was Sawamura’s house, a single light burning in a downstairs window. The silhouette of a woman peered out at them—Sawamura’s mother, if Ukai had to guess, concerned about her son’s whereabouts and the late hour. 

“Like what?” Ukai asked, instinctively picking up on what Sawamura was implying. “Responsible? Assertive, or whatever? You want your friends to be okay, and you want them to do well. There’s no shame in that. It’s a good thing, that you care so much.”

Sawamura raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been told I’m intense.”

“So what?” Ukai scoffed. “Intense is the word used by unmotivated people to describe the motivated. Who said that to you? Forget about them.”

Sawamura’s second eyebrow joined the first in prodding at his hairline and Ukai grimaced, realizing that  _ he’d _ been the one to come off as intense. “Just . . . relax, okay. You’re doing fine. You’re doing more than you have to. If you were any less the way you are, either Tanaka or Noya probably would’ve killed someone by now. Or Ennoshita. Kid doesn’t look like much, but he’s got those crazy eyes.”

“Yeah,” Sawamura said. He seemed to be standing just that much straighter.“Yeah, he does. Thanks, Coach. For walking me home. And for, well, everything.”

Ukai waved him off, turning to head back the way he came. “Next week,” he called over his shoulder. “In Takeda’s office. We’ll do the warmup lists, together. Don’t you try and start them beforehand.”

Sawamura flashed him a thumbs up and pulled his bag close to his chest before walking up the path to his house. If Ukai lingered just long enough to ensure the door closed firmly behind him, well. He was just ensuring that the person who composed seventy percent of the team’s impulse control got home safely. It was a form of self-preservation, really. No need to make a big deal out of anything, not even in his own head. 

Retracing his steps, Ukai shuffled the papers Sawamura had been drawing up under one arm. Composing the warmup lists himself would probably extend his weekly meetings with Takeda, and cut even further into his precious free time, but Ukai couldn’t really bring himself to care. What if Sawamura had passed out somewhere else instead of the clubroom? Somewhere unsafe, like the bus stop?

Gods. He should probably start making sleep schedules for the kids along with the diet plans, at this rate. He knew damn well Tsukishima at least wasn’t getting enough rest. The boy came into morning practice with eyebags the size of Russia. 

Yeah. He’d go home, eat some instant ramen, and start on those sleep schedules. And then, maybe, he’d think about pulling Sawamura aside one day and impressing upon him that he was fine the way he was, intensity and all. That he needed to start looking after himself, too, as well as trying to look after everyone else. After all, someone clearly had to do it, and Ukai found—well, he found that he didn’t mind if that someone was him. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case you're wondering, this is my personal allotment of impulse control in the Karasuno Men's VBC:
> 
> Daichi: 70% this man is ON it  
> Suga: 2% because yes he CAN exercise restraint but WILL he is another question  
> Asahi: also 2% but because of anxiety  
> Ennoshita: a healthy 10%. I respect him  
> Kinoshita: 3% as he runs away when called on. which. v relatable  
> Narita: 3% simply for showing up  
> Tanaka: 0% self-explanatory  
> Noya: -10% makes it his goal to cancel out Ennoshita's steadying influence  
> Tsukishima: 5% just enough to make sure he's not going to die  
> Yamaguchi: 6% or just enough to make sure everyone else is not going to die  
> Hinata: 0% I mean  
> Kageyama: 1% because he's slightly less impulsive than Hinata  
> Yachi: 0% sorry babe ily but you became a manager bc a pretty girl asked you ONCE  
> Kiyoko: 8% because no, she's not going to do anything crazy but yes, she did subject herself to being a manager willingly


	2. "no more fucking fighting"

2\. Sugawara Koushi

Sugawara Koushi was kind. 

That was the first thing Ukai noticed about him. It was in his eyes, in his smile, in the way he talked to his teammates. Sugawara was kind, and he was patient, and he had an incredible innate ability to bring out the best in other people—Ukai had, more than once, seen him turn a match around through sheer force of personality alone. With a mix of annoyance and grudging respect, Seijoh’s Oikawa Tooru had nicknamed him “Mr. Refreshing,” and Ukai couldn’t think of a better nickname for someone whose very presence felt like a cool drink after a hot day.

But for all his unwavering kindness, Ukai had learned—the hard way—that Sugawara was _also_ a clever bastard with a sly wit and a mischievous streak a mile wide. His brilliant, guileless grin was normally just that—a smile that promised joy and comfort—but sometimes, it was a trap. A trap with teeth.

He was careful about it, though. Sugawara seemed to have a sense of his teammates’ limits, and never pushed anyone who couldn’t take it, and, on rare occasions, anyone who didn’t deserve it. Kageyama, for instance, was never treated to anything worse than a light kick and a mildly teasing comment. The poor kid didn’t hold up well under anything but the most benign of mockery, and Sugawara had adjusted accordingly. 

Azumane, though—Ukai often wondered what exactly Azumane had done to Sugawara to merit such ruthless teasing. According to an unfazed Sawamura, Sugawara had been terrorizing him since first year. However, Sugawara was also the first to jump in line to terrorize _other_ players on other teams when they poked fun at Azumane’s anxiety at matches, something which Ukai was technically supposed to halt as his coach but often found himself turning a blind eye to instead. Sugawara’s barbed insults and petty little exchanges were _funny_.

In fact, the only difference between Tanaka and Noya’s particular brand of chaos and Sugawara’s was that Sugawara’s was infinitely smarter. Sugawara actually had a hold on his temper, and above all, he never got himself caught.

(Ukai knew—he _knew_ —that it had been Sugawara who had somehow swiped his pack of cigarettes and replaced every one of them with a roll of Smarties. Neither Tanaka nor Noya had the imagination or the inclination. But somehow, during the hour that the switch had taken place, Sugawara had been either across the gym practicing serves or outside running laps with no less than three other people as witnesses. Absolutely brilliant. Equally infuriating.)

So when the phone rang at an ungodly hour of the morning and Ukai was informed that there was a kid down at the police station listing him as the emergency contact, Ukai wasn’t exactly surprised. He’d been expecting such a call since he’d realized during his first week coaching that while most members of the volleyball club were long on reckless determination, they were unfortunately short on any kind of common sense. He was only surprised that the kid in question was Sugawara.

Ukai rolled out of his futon, groping around in the dark for yesterday’s pair of pants. He’d been a little disgruntled, earlier in the night, that Takeda hadn’t stayed over; he was now glad for it. The teacher got little enough sleep as it was, and this sort of thing was probably best kept between Ukai and Sugawara. Takeda’s quiet disappointment could classify as a deadly weapon. 

Shoving a headband on to contain his bangs, Ukai shuffled out of the backroom behind the shop and opened the side door that let out onto the street. He picked up his jacket and shoes as he went, hoping that Sugawara hadn’t done anything _too_ drastic. The team would be in trouble if their second setter and star motivator was rotting away in jail for arson, or whatever it was the kids were into these days. 

The drive to the police station was twenty minutes; Ukai made it in fifteen, leaving his truck in the parking lot with the engine still running. The officer manning the front desk looked up at him with detached apathy, spinning a pen lazily in between her first two fingers.

“Name?” she drawled. 

“Ukai Keishin,” Ukai said, trying not to squint against the sudden brightness of the interior of the station. 

“Oh.” Her expression eased, and she gestured over one shoulder. “He’s yours, then?”

Glancing past her, Ukai caught sight of a disheveled Sugawara sitting in one of the plastic chairs that lined the waiting room, looking put out and angry, but also mostly like a teenager who was struggling not to fall asleep where he sat.

Ukai sighed. It was too much work to explain that he was actually Sugawara’s volleyball coach, not his parent or another relative, so he simply settled with, “Yeah. He’s mine.”

“Good, good.” She shoved a file of papers across the desk at him. “Sign these, and you’re both free to go.”

Ukai yanked a pen out of his jacket pocket, scrawling his name on the dotted line. “So he’s not—he didn’t, uh, do—”

“There was an incident,” she shrugged. “But your boy was cleared of any charges.”

Pressing his lips together in satisfaction—he really hadn’t wanted to spend last week’s paycheck on bail—Ukai slipped past her and into the waiting room, nudging Sugawara gently in the leg with one sandaled foot. “Hey. Time to go.”

Sugawara’s head jerked up, his eyes flashing with naked relief when he saw it was Ukai standing above him. “Oh! Hi, Coach.”

Sugawara stood, wobbling a little, and Ukai took advantage of his brief disorientation to slip the schoolbag Sugawara was still holding out of his hands and onto his own shoulder.

Sugawara reached for it, protesting. “Hey, wait, I can—”

“You,” Ukai cut across him, not unkindly, “can explain to me what you’re doing here.” He steered Sugawara gently toward the door, exchanging a nod with the desk officer on their way out. Sugawara shivered slightly when they emerged into the cool night air, and Ukai internally praised his own foresight in leaving the truck running. He tossed Sugawara’s bag in the back and waited until the teenager had buckled himself into the passenger seat before demanding, “So? Out with it, kid.”

Sugawara sighed, slumping in his seat. The small tuft of silver hair that often stood straight from the crown of his head had wilted, giving him a weary look. Ukai resisted the absurd urge to tug it back into its proper position. “One of my classmates was absent today and the teacher asked me to drop her work off at home because we’ve been partners for projects in the past. I did, after practice, but then I got lost on the way back, and—it was dark, by the time I got myself straightened out. I didn’t see what was happening at first, but there was this girl, and two guys, and she was drunk and saying no but they weren’t backing off and there was no one else around, so—”

His tone grew exasperated, his lips screwing up into a small pout. “Except _someone_ must’ve heard us, because the police showed up and arrested all four of us even though I didn’t even _do_ anything.”

Ukai raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t do anything, huh?”

Catching the dryness of his tone, Sugawara flushed, going red from the tips of his ears down to his collarbone. “Well, I mean, I might’ve—nothing serious, just a couple light kicks—”

Ukai had seen one of Sugawara’s “light kicks” leave Tanaka gasping on the floor for five straight minutes. “Huh. Good for you.”

“Good for—” Sugawara spluttered, looking so thoroughly shocked that Ukai had to bite his lips to hide a smile. “Aren’t you gonna, like, scold me?”

“No,” Ukai said, throwing the gearshift into reverse and pulling out of the station. “Not if you won.”

He was hardly in a position to criticize, given the scraps he’d gotten into as a teenager. In fact, he still had the scar on his elbow from that time he’d duked it out with a kid from the basketball team over the nasty name he’d called Shimada and the bastard had shoved him through a window. 

Besides, scolding was hardly an effective tool against Sugawara, who often seemed to view verbal sparring as an entertaining diversion before the _actual_ sparring took place.

Sugawara scoffed, sniffing. “Of course I won, Coach. Not all by myself, though,” he added thoughtfully, cocking his head to the side. “That girl had a hell of a right hook.”

Ukai grunted. “Yeah, they tend to. Anyway, where am I dropping you?” 

Sugawara suddenly seemed to shrink in his seat, guilt crumpling his expression. “Ah—anywhere’s fine, really—I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“It’s fine,” Ukai said. “Uh. Your parents?”

“Business trip in Osaka,” Sugawara said quietly, staring down at his lap. “I called, but neither of them picked up. That officer at the desk said I could stay at the station until morning, but—”

“It’s fine,” Ukai said, a little more strongly. It was hard not to take notice of whose family showed up in the stands at their matches, and whose did not. He was on speaking terms with Daichi’s parents, with the sprawling cast of Ennoshita’s cousins, and with Noya’s older sisters (all three of whom were equally short and loud), but he’d never so much as seen a hair of either of the Sugawaras. 

But it was one thing, Ukai thought, to disregard your son’s hobbies; and quite another to leave him stranded at a police station in the middle of the night after he’d gotten in a fight with two thugs. Gods. He should probably start microchipping these kids, if only for his own peace of mind. 

“Home?” he prompted Sugawara, who started briefly before giving out the directions in a subdued voice. When Ukai pulled into the driveway, all the lights in the house were off, and Sugawara thanked him profusely before reaching to open the passenger side door.

Ukai leaned over him to pull it closed again. “Hold on, kid. Let me see your hands.”

Sugawara’s eyes narrowed, even while his smile spread wider, grew sweeter. “Oh, no need for that, Coach. It’s late, I woke you up, you must be tired—”

“Sugawara,” Ukai said pointedly. It had not escaped his notice that Sugawara had kept his hands buried in his jacket pockets during the whole ride; his setter’s hands, which he maintained with such militant care. 

Sugawara’s eyes slid away from his in defeat, and he pulled his hands from his pockets to bare them for Ukai’s inspection. Ukai winced, glancing down at the bruises blooming on Sugawara’s knuckles, the flesh turning mottled and swollen. 

“It’s fine,” Sugawara said with a light laugh and a wave. “I’ll wrap them, don’t worry.”

Ukai blew out a breath. “Not alone, you won’t.”

“Coach—”

“Don’t be stupid, Sugawara. How many times have you told the underclassmen not to try and tape their own fingers?”

Sugawara pouted, but his silence was answer enough. 

“Do you have a first aid kit?”

“Yes,” Sugawara said, and hesitated. “But we’ll have to be quiet. My little brother’s supposed to be asleep by now.”

Ukai nodded, sliding out of the driver’s seat and taking Sugawara’s bag from the back before the other boy had a chance. Sugawara eased the front door open using a key he’d plucked from underneath a plant pot and then disappeared upstairs. Ukai waited in the kitchen, unable to help noticing that every framed photo displayed was only of the elder two Sugawaras. Looking at the pictures, he never would’ve guessed the couple had a son, let alone two. 

There was a reason, probably, that Sugawara came to every practice with a beaming grin and a predilection for taking care of his teammates. He’d most likely been doing it for his younger brother—and himself—far longer than he should've had to. Ukai’s heart twisted once in his chest. Sugawara was a kid. He should’ve been allowed the chance to just _be_ a kid. 

Sugawara slipped back down the stairs and Ukai stepped away from the photos, settling at the kitchen table across from him. It took little time for Ukai to clean and disinfect Sugawara’s hands, careful not to pull too tight when wrapping the gauze. Sugawara remained silent during the entire procedure. The only sign of his discomfort was the way his teeth dug into his lower lip.

“Take it easy at practice tomorrow,” Ukai commanded, flexing Sugawara’s fingers one by one to check for range of motion. “You can’t risk further injury.”

Sugawara frowned. “But, Coach, Interhigh is—”

Ukai rolled his eyes, exasperated. His team’s singleminded dedication to volleyball was by turns incredibly inspiring and incredibly irritating. “I don’t care about Interhigh right now. I care about you. And you—you did a good thing. You know that, right? You did a _good_ thing.”

Sugawara blushed, his hand tensing in between Ukai’s. “It was the right thing. Anyone would’ve done the same.”

“No,” Ukai said. “They wouldn’t have.” He waited until Sugawara met his eyes and then leaned forward and flicked him on the forehead. “But no more fucking fighting, alright?”

Sugawara yelped, but the corners of his mouth turned up. “No promises, Coach.”

“Little shit,” Ukai said fondly, and stood. He was touched, a little, that he was the person Sugawara had thought to call after he couldn’t reach his parents. It was proof that Ukai was slowly but surely gaining the team’s trust. “Go to bed.”

“I will, I will,” Sugawara said, and then shocked him by darting in for a quick, hard hug. There was no time for Ukai to hug back, only to watch as Sugawara vanished up the stairs again with the first aid kit. Shaking his head, Ukai let himself out, being careful to close the door quietly behind him. 

Sugawara could look after himself, that much was clear. But maybe—maybe Ukai would start offering him a ride home after practice, every once in a while. Just to make sure that Sugawara knew that just because he could look after himself, didn’t mean he always had to. 

After all, Ukai had always sort of liked the idea of being an older brother. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ukai in this chap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlAYxieNn9Q
> 
> (time stamp 1:15)


	3. "i see you"

3\. Shimizu Kiyoko

Shimizu Kiyoko had the patience of a saint. 

There was no other earthly explanation for the way she’d managed to maintain her sanity in the face of the crew of monsters that liked to call itself the Karasuno Men’s VBC for three straight years—Ukai, only a few months in, could already feel himself slipping. 

An outside observer to the sport of volleyball might claim that it was the players themselves who were most responsible for the team’s functionality. A slightly wiser observer might include the faculty advisor and coach in that tally. The wisest of observers, however—the wisest among them made sure not to forget the managers. At this point, Ukai was willing to cede accountability for at least 21% of the club’s general operation to Shimizu, which was a rather heavy burden for one seventeen year old girl to bear on her rather slim shoulders.

Shimizu, of course, bore that burden easily, and looked as perfectly unbothered as always while doing it. If she wasn’t refilling water bottles and ensuring Narita didn’t pass out from dehydration again, she was liaising with the managers of other teams and trying to arrange practice matches. If she wasn’t keeping detailed and intensive notes on every player’s performance and statistics, she was gently reassuring Hinata and Yamaguchi that, _no_ , the bus would not leave without them, and whoever had told them that was gravely misinformed. 

And on top of all the administrative duties that she performed, Shimizu had a true and genuine bond with each and every player. She didn’t speak much, but she didn’t have to—her actions spoke for her. 

She also had a mean underhand serve, one that Ukai was dying to know where she learned it from, but that could perhaps wait until she seemed slightly less tense around him. Having functioned without a coach for so long, Shimizu seemed to be harboring the notion that Ukai was going to fire her from doing some of the jobs that normally fell into the coach’s purview. In reality, that was the absolute last thing Ukai felt like doing. He was more than aware of how much Shimizu seemed to treasure some of her tasks, and also more than aware that his own in-game notes left something to be desired. 

(Probably multiple somethings, if he was being honest with himself.) 

As Ukai valued both Shimizu’s in-game notes and her rare spoken input, he was doing his best not to scare her off. Which was why, on the matter of asking after the underhand serve, he was taking a page out of her book, and being patient. 

In fact, Shimizu’s unworldly and possibly angelic ability to remain calm even in the most bizarre of situations seemed to be a hallmark of her character—so when even _her_ legendary patience began to deplete, leaving her fidgeting in her seat, Ukai decided it was high time for a break. They’d been on the road for four straight hours already, traveling to a retreat high in the mountains where they’d spend a weekend at a training camp with Aobajohsai. 

Glancing at the near-empty gas tank, Ukai guided the bus to the nearest exit and pulled to a slow stop at a small gas station boasting a handful of pumps and a cramped store. A quick survey of the bus revealed that approximately half the team was awake, the other half obliviously slumbering on. 

Sawamura, thankfully, was alert, and Ukai passed him fifty thousand yen with instructions to ask the cashier to put it on Pump 3. Of course, if _he_ was going inside, then the rest of the cognizant team members decided they were going as well. Ukai cranked the doors open for them, making sure to confiscate the extra money Tanaka tried to sneak along.

“No,” Ukai said sternly, reaching over and tucking the bills into the bag he’d brought along solely for confiscation purposes. Along with the money, it now contained Noya’s PSP (he’d thrown it at Kinoshita’s head after losing a round), Sugawara’s pocketknife (there were innumerable reasons why allowing Sugawara to have a knife was a terrible idea) and Yachi’s planner (she’d been fretting over it so much Ukai had worried it was going to send her into a comatose state). “No more snacks. Eat some fruit, for gods’ sakes. You’re going to get scurvy.” He’d just seen Tanaka chew his way through an entire family-sized bag of cheetos. 

Tanaka whined, but got off the bus with no further complaints. Hinata, stumbling half-awake after him, missed a step and would’ve fallen if Ennoshita hadn’t caught him by the back of his jacket and set him to rights. The last person to depart was Shimizu, who took a moment simply to stand in the fresh air and breathe in a deep inhale. 

Ukai walked around to the side of the bus and primed the pump. It lit up, meaning that Daichi had successfully managed to interact with the cashier. He could see the boys inside the store through the front window—most of them wandering the aisles while Hinata disappeared, presumably to go to the bathroom. 

The first person to exit the shop was Shimizu, pushing the door open with a ring of the bell that was pinned to the top of the doorframe. A few more cars had pulled into the lot while the boys waited inside, meaning she had to walk back past a minivan stuffed with three toddlers and dead-eyed father, and a truck with a couple of young men lounging on the open bed. 

It was unseasonably warm out, and in deference to the temperature, Shimizu had left her team jacket on the bus. Her arms were bare, her upper body clad in only the thin white tee shirt worn under the jacket. Ukai saw the exact moment the leering youths in the truck noticed; and also saw the exact moment Shimizu noticed that she was _being_ noticed. 

Her steps didn’t falter; didn’t slow or speed. The only sign of her sudden discomfort was the way one hand rose to untuck the piece of hair she’d folded behind one ear, letting it fall like a curtain to shield her face. 

The gesture, however, was ignored by the young men in the truck. One of them leaned over the edge of the truck bed with a lecherous whistle, and the other slung himself over the side entirely, landing on the asphalt of the parking lot. 

“Hey, lady,” he said, with an edge to his grin that made Ukai hurriedly slam the pump back onto its rack. “You’re lookin’ real nice. Give me your number, and I’ll show you a good time.”

Shimizu sidestepped him with a polite shake of her head. He wasn’t satisfied, however—going so far as to dodge back into her way, holding up his hands in a manner that was probably supposed to be placating, but instead came off as threatening. “Oh, come on,” he complained. “Not even a ‘hello’?” 

Shimizu ducked her head silently, hands clenching into tense fists at her sides, and the man’s smile twisted into something ugly. “What, am I not good enough for you?”

“Hey,” Ukai barked, already halfway across the lot. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Of course, they all already knew what was going on—it was harassment, plain and simple. Shimizu wasn’t interested. She was also a minor, a fact Ukai intended to get through the young man’s skull if he had to beat it into him.

They both turned to look at him. Shimizu wasn’t the most expressive of individuals, and Ukai was far from emotionally intelligent, but even he was able to read the relief in the way her shoulders loosened. He extended an inviting arm and she hurried to duck behind it, staring at the young men from over his shoulder. Her face was flushed; whether from shame or anger, he couldn’t tell.

“Hey,” said the first man, with an uneasy smile. “You her pops? Didn’t mean anything by it. She’s just real beautiful.”

Ukai felt his lip curl into a sneer. No, men like him never ‘meant anything by it,’ at least not until they thought they could get away with speaking as they liked and doing worse. He took a step closer, into the other man’s space. 

“Get back in your truck,” Ukai said, letting every ounce of his days as a high school delinquent bleed out in his voice. He made pointed eye contact with the other youth, who’d frozen still as if in hopes that Ukai wouldn’t see him. “And shut your fucking mouth before I knock your teeth out for talking to a child like that.”

The first man paled. “Hey man, I didn’t know she was a kid—”

“You knew she wasn’t interested.” Ukai overrode him, hotly, with something close to a snarl. He stammered out an excuse, but Ukai didn’t move until they’d both climbed back into the vehicle and the truck had sputtered away. 

“Assholes,” Ukai grunted. He checked first to ensure none of the boys had come out of the store yet and seen what had occured—the last thing he needed right now was for a half dozen of his players to go tearing out onto the highway vowing vengeance. Assured that they were all still inside waiting on Hinata, Ukai turned back to Shimizu. 

Her face was still flushed, and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Arms crossed protectively over her chest, her bare arms prickled with gooseflesh despite the warmer temperature. Ukai sighed, and unzipped the light windbreaker he wore over his tank top. He moved to lay it over her shoulders, waiting until she’d drawn the edges together with shaking fingers to let go. 

Ukai opened and closed his mouth several times, before settling on, “People should learn how to keep their eyes in their damn skulls,” because it had been _them_ , not her, who’d been in the wrong, and he wasn’t sure she understood that. 

She nodded, once, face still turned downwards. Ukai almost put his hand on her shoulder to reassure her, but drew it back after watching the way she leaned away from him, just slightly. They walked back to the bus together, but she didn’t open the door and get on. Instead, she leaned against the side of the vehicle, taking her glasses off with one hand.

With a sudden shock, Ukai realized she was crying. Silently, politely, tears dripping from her eyes and splashing onto the windbreaker’s collar.

“Aw, hell,” Ukai said. He’d never done well with crying. He wished Takeda were here, instead of asleep in the front seat of the bus. Takeda was _excellent_ with crying. “Uh, do you want a—” He pawed through his pants pocket in search of a napkin or something, but only succeeded in fishing out a pack of cigarettes, some gum, and the protein bar he’d intended to have for a snack later. He tucked the cigarettes away and offered her the gum and the protein bar. 

After a moment, she took one of the sticks of gum, folding it between her fingers before slipping it into her mouth.

“Look,” Ukai said. “They were scum, okay? That sort of harassment is never acceptable—”

“It wasn’t that,” she said softly, pulling the windbreaker closer around her shoulders. “They were rude, but—I just wish someone would look at me and see _me_ , for once.”

The reply stunned him for a moment—wasn’t people looking at her the whole issue in the first place? But then he thought a little harder, about being a girl in a world that often seemed to hate girls; about being a _beautiful_ girl in a world that loved to hold beautiful girls up like idols or down like dirt, simply for the crime of being born beautiful.

Then he thought about Kiyoko’s drive, and her dedication, and her compassion, and her fierce loyalty to the people she cared about; and was abruptly furious. 

The first thing people noticed when looking at Azumane was his gentle air, or his barely-restrained anxiety. 

The first thing people noticed when looking at Shimizu was the color of her eyes or the set of her lips. Ukai had seen it, the way boys from other teams gazed at her covetously as if she were a prize to be won and not a living, breathing person with her own dreams and desires. 

Ukai bit his lip. There was nothing he could do to fix the various problems of the world, but—

“I see you,” he promised her, gruffly. “I know what you do for this team. I know they wouldn’t have made it anywhere without you.”

She looked up at him, twisting her fingers together. Her eyes swam with uncertainty. “My university counsellor told me I was _crazy_ for continuing to be a manager in my third year. He thinks I should focus more on my studies. And . . . and my parents don’t understand why I dedicate so much of my time to a sport I don’t even play. They think it’s a waste.”

Ukai leaned back against the bus, tilting his chin up to look at the flock of crows wheeling overhead. Two of the birds briefly separated from the rest of the murder, squabbling over a tidbit one of them had clutched in its beak. 

“It might be crazy,” he conceded with a laugh. “Who knows? The whole damn team’s crazy. But do you like what you’re doing? Does it make you happy?” 

They were the questions he’d asked himself, after making the decision to commit to coaching as a full-time job. He found himself quite satisfied with the answers.

Her small, answering smile was like watching a flower bloom, like watching the sun’s first rays creep over the horizon. It made her face something beyond lovely, more than beautiful. It lit her from within. “Yes,” she said. “This is what I’ve always wanted to do—and the team are my best friends.”

Ukai shrugged. “Well that’s that, then.” It was the only answer that mattered, in the grand scheme of things. 

“That’s that,” she echoed softly, and shrugged off his windbreaker. “Thank you, Coach. For chasing off those guys.”

Ukai waved one hand in front of his face, accepting the windbreaker with the other. He was secretly pleased by how that interaction had turned out; he hadn’t even had to throw a punch. Seemed like he still had some of his old swagger, after all. “Eh, it was nothing. Young punks like that aren’t much of a threat. All you need is a little bark, not much bite.”

She tilted her head, slipping her glasses back on. “If they’re young punks, what does that make you? A middle-aged punk?”

The question was posed with such straight-faced innocence that it took Ukai a beat to realize that he’d just been mocked. “You—” he started, flabbergasted, but was interrupted by a bloodcurdling shriek that he unfortunately was able to identify as Hinata’s due to sheer familiarity. 

Whipping his head around, Ukai caught sight of approximately half the team barrelling toward him without any regard for traffic laws, passerby, or each other, presumably trying to race back to the bus. 

“STOP THAT,” he roared, at the same time that Sawamura slapped a hand over Tanaka’s chest, yelling at him to slow down. “Oh, for the love of—”

Ukai sighed, and turned back to Shimizu. “I know you said they’re your best friends. But surely we could leave a few of them behind?”

She had the audacity to giggle at him, as if the suggestion wasn’t a perfectly rational solution to the headache he could already feel brewing. “You wouldn’t leave anyone behind, Coach.”

And no, he really wouldn’t. His boys were annoying as fuck, but the bus ride would be boring without one of them trying to strangle another with the cord to his headphones, or whatever it was the second years got up to when they thought he wasn’t looking. 

Shimizu climbed onto the bus without looking back, neatly evading the horde of teenage boys stampeding closer. Her shoulders had straightened beneath her tee shirt. 

  
When she said he wouldn’t leave anyone behind, he hoped she understood that included her, too. Manager or not, she was an integral part of the team. He saw _that_ clear as day. Maybe she couldn’t see it yet herself, but—Ukai had months ahead of him as a coach. Nothing but time to impress upon her her own importance. Nothing but time to help her see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're wondering how I'm choosing who to do next, these chapters are supposed to be in (approximately) chronological order!


	4. "ask him out like it's match point in the third set"

4\. Azumane Asahi

Azumane Asahi was a study in contradictions. 

As fierce on the court as he was timid off of it, Azumane was the subject of many a town rumor, ranging from those that claimed he was actually a twenty two year old who’d been held back five times, to those that alleged that he was a member of the yakuza and had beat up another student in the parking lot once.

Upon first glance, Ukai had thought there might be some substance to those rumors. Azumane was big, after all, with the beginnings of a beard and shoulders wider than Ukai’s own. 

Then Ukai had seen Azumane startle and leap aside when a squirrel crossed his path during laps, and decided there wasn’t any truth to those rumors. Azumane’s face, which some whispered was set in a permanent scowl of fury, was in truth set in a permanent anxiety-inspired grimace. It just so happened that, on a man who was Azumane’s size, anxiety tended to look a lot like anger. 

But for all his uncertainty regarding his day-to-day life, Azumane didn’t falter on the court. He was the ace, in every sense of the word. The player with the most sheer attacking power, capable of blasting past even the most intimidating of blocks. 

His confidence now, halfway through the season, was heads and shoulders above what it had been when Ukai had first met him. Ukai knew about his struggles with Dateko’s Iron Wall—that he’d even quit the club after being shut out one too many times. But the quitting wasn’t the important part; the rejoining was. Everyone got knocked down at some point in their lives. The measure of a person laid in what they chose to do afterwards. 

Azumane had chosen to get back up again. (It made Ukai wonder, a little bitterly, about his own choices in high school. About how much getting up again cost a person, and whether it was worth it in the end.)

Ukai understood that it had taken time, and no small amount of persuasion from Azumane’s fellow third years. Being exasperatingly well-acquainted with both Sawamura’s sheer bullheadedness and Sugawara’s capacity for mischief, he almost felt sorry for the high-strung ace. He could imagine the two of them ambushing him at all hours of the day; persuading, needling, _pushing_.

Whatever they’d done, however, it had worked. Azumane had rejoined the team and promptly doubled Karasuno’s offensive ability. 

Though, Ukai somewhat doubted that it had only been Sawamura’s and Sugawara’s joint harassment that had made Azumane’s decision. Azumane could choose for himself.

There was also the matter of the way in which Azumane looked at Nishinoya.

It was a way of looking that most closely resembled Not Looking, for Azumane would stare at the back of Nishinoya’s head until the other boy turned around, at which point Azumane would wrench his gaze away and pretend to be greatly interested in something happening on the other side of the court. 

Ukai was beginning to get whiplash just from watching him. But at the same time, he couldn’t stop watching; firstly because there was a softness to Azumane’s gaze that plucked at Ukai’s heartstrings, and secondly because Azumane in looking and then Not Looking at Nishinoya was not actually paying much attention to the court. Ukai’d had to yell at him to duck a stray ball three times already.

Ukai blew the whistle that signaled the end of practice, interrupting yet another of Azumane’s lovesick staring sessions. The boys crowded around him immediately, squawking out questions and demands and pleas for meatbuns, _please Coach I’m so hungry pleaaaaase, if I don’t eat meatbuns right this moment I’m going to DIE, you don’t want me to DIE Coach, do you?_ and Ukai yelled at them to go get changed and afterwards they’d all walk to the shop together.

“Impossible brats,” he said to Takeda, who had on that small smile that suggested he knew more than you did, and stormed into the coach’s office to grab some paperwork. 

Except there was no peace _anywhere_ , because Ukai had only just been able to light his first cigarette when there was a knock at the door. Ukai stubbed out the cigarette, and groaned, and told whoever it was on the other side of the door to come in.

“Uh, hi Coach,” said Azumane, sidling in the doorway. “Can I ask you a question?”

_You already did_ , Ukai bit back, and said, “Yeah, go ahead.”

“So,” Azumane said, and shuffled his feet. “If. I mean. Hypothetically speaking . . . people are . . . nice. And cute. And energetic and passionate and really cool. And if there was, um, one specific person who was nice and cute and cool, and I really liked them, uh—”

“Yes?” said Ukai.

“I would very much like to ask someone on a date but I don’t know how to do it,” Azumane said very quickly, and hid his face in his hands.

“Okay,” said Ukai blankly. “That’s great, kid. But why are you asking me for help?”

“Well, um, you’re dating Sensei, aren’t you? Surely you must have some advice . . .”

Ukai’s jaw hinged open. “How did you—I mean, why would you think—” He felt the flush travel up his neck. He and Takeda had been so careful; never exchanging even the barest of touches while the kids were around, being sure to depart the gym in opposite directions after evening practice had ended and then circling around to meet back up.

“Ah.” Azumane cringed. “You guys aren’t exactly . . . subtle? Like, you look at each other all lovey and stuff. . .”

“The way you look at Nishinoya?” Ukai asked, before he could stop himself.

It was Azumane’s turn to freeze.

“Sorry,” said Ukai. “But you’re not subtle, either.”

Azumane deflated. “I guess not,” he mumbled. “But I just like him so much and I don’t know what to _do_.”

“Have you tried telling him how you feel?” said Ukai, because Takeda was forever reproaching _him_ about being emotionally available and honest about his feelings, and he figured Takeda’s advice was always good advice.

“I can’t just tell him,” Azumane cried, wringing his hands together. “It has to be special! Noya deserves for it to be special.”

“Okay,” Ukai said, and searched the deepest recesses of his brain for what might constitute as “special” to two highschool volleyball players. “How about chocolate?”

“He’s allergic.”

“A nice dinner?” Ukai hazarded. It was what he and Takeda did when they felt like being _special_. 

“Yuu wouldn’t like that.”

“You’re probably right.” Ukai tried to imagine Nishinoya in any sort of formal wear at any sort of fancy restaurant, and promptly shuddered. “Alright. How about flowers, then?”

“Flowers?” Azumane seemed caught on the idea, his hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck. “I think that’d be really nice . . .”

“Good,” said Ukai. “Great. So that’s settled. Buy him some flowers, and ask him to go out with you.”

“Right!” Azumane said, seemingly trying to talk himself up, but then paled. “But Coach, I don’t know how to pick out flowers! There are so many, and they all mean different things. What if I accidentally give him a flower that means _I hate you_ or something like that?”

Ukai stared at him. “You’re not going to give him a flower that means _I hate you_.”

“I might! What if I grab the wrong one, and—”

“Okay!” Ukai interrupted, raising a hand. His plans for the evening—which included a big bottle of sake and a new episode of his favorite J-drama—vanished like evening mist, but he couldn’t bring himself to be that upset about it. He was, despite himself, invested in making sure that Azumane got his man and did _not_ accidentally convey an elaborate message of hate through a poorly constructed bouquet. Though, to tell the truth, Ukai was fairly sure Nishinoya had no idea what the language of flowers even was, and was almost certainly not able to read it. It was the thought that counted.

“My shop sells flowers,” Ukai said. “Later tonight, after everyone else has left, you can stay behind and we’ll pick some out together. Alright?”

Azumane brightened. “Thanks so much, Coach!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ukai said. “Now get back out there and tell Tanaka that if he tries to buy one of those vape pens again I’m banning him for life.”

Azumane nodded and departed, and Ukai dragged himself up from his chair. Paperwork in hand, he made sure to discard the cigarette before leaving. He emerged from the office and the boys swarmed him once again, yammering on about this and that. Ukai gently swatted a couple of them with his sheaf of papers, prompting exaggerated yowls and retaliatory pinches. 

“Let’s go,” he scolded, feeling as if he were trying to herd a group of squabbling crows. “Come _on_. Some of you have curfews.”

He got them into gear; or rather, Takeda did, and Ukai slipped behind the shop’s register once they all arrived. Sawamura tried to pay for the meatbuns himself, as he always did, and Ukai refused, as _he_ always did. Later, Ukai would find a few thousand yen tucked discreetly away on a shop shelf, and the next day, Sawamura would find that same few thousand yen mysteriously placed back into his sports bag. It was an old ritual at this point. 

The kids left in twos and threes, juggling hot meatbuns from hand to hand and shouting goodbyes. Takeda lingered, granted him a swift kiss when the coast was clear, and promised to meet Ukai tomorrow for a picnic date. Ukai found himself smiling dumbly as the teacher left, and had to quickly rearrange his face back into a neutral scowl when Azumane poked his head nervously around one of the aisles. 

“Coach?”

“Coming,” Ukai said gruffly, trying to will away the color staining his cheeks. He was twenty-fucking-six; ridiculous that just a chaste brush of lips could reduce him to a blushing mess.

Ukai led Azumane up to the front of the shop, near the wide windows which glowed with sunlight during the day. The flowers were kept on the floor in small buckets half-filled with water. They were fresh, having been dropped off just that morning. 

“How about, uh—” Ukai squinted at the webpage he’d pulled up earlier at the register— “a red carnation, for love and pride?”

A flower symbolizing pride, Ukai felt, would be an especially apt gift for Nishinoya. Noya oozed pride; pride in himself, in his teammates, in his position as a libero. Azumane seemed to agree, for his eyes brightened even as he twisted his hands together nervously. 

“Yeah! Is there—I don’t suppose there’s a flower that means, um, constancy? Or, like, dependability or something . . .”

They pieced the bouquet together slowly, spending long minutes agonizing over flower color and the composition of the arrangement as a whole, eventually arriving at something that Azumane found satisfactory. Found beautiful, if the small smile on his face was anything to go by. Ukai dusted his hands off with a grunt, feeling like maybe he should’ve become a florist. Surely it would be less likely to cause premature graying than coaching. 

“How much?” Azumane asked, digging in his pockets, and Ukai shook his head.

“Nothing. Just tell me how it pans out, okay, kid?”

Azumane shuffled his feet, dropping his gaze to the floor. The bouquet, cradled so carefully in his large hands, looked somewhat like a child’s toy. “You think I even have a chance? Noya’s so cool, and I’m . . . well, I’m kind of a wimp.”

“Hey!” Ukai barked, poking him in the chest. He was not going to allow Azumane’s romantic aspirations to sputter out before they’d really even had the chance to kindle. “None of that! You’re the ace! You’re cool, too. Act like it!”

“But—”

“No buts! I want you to get out there tomorrow and ask him out like it’s match point in the third set!”

Azumane’s face filled with the familiar fire that only seemed to emerge during games, and he straightened, bellowing out a, “ _Yes, Coach!_ ” before turning around and practically sprinting for the door. 

Ukai watched him go, shaking his head. Azumane wasn’t sure if Nishinoya would accept his advances, but Ukai was, because he knew something Azumane didn’t. See, Ukai hadn’t been the only one watching Azumane during practice. Nishinoya watched him too, with double the intensity and an undercurrent of frustrated longing. In fact, Ukai had been certain that it was going to be Nishinoya who would make the first move. He was beyond proud that Azumane had found within himself the courage and self-confidence to do so instead. 

Ukai turned back to the flowers, eyeing them warily. Flowers would be nice for a picnic date, right? Almost disbelieving himself, Ukai ensured that the front door was locked before beginning to put together his own bouquet. A hydrangea clipping, for perseverance, was the first bloom he selected.

He felt kind of stupid, shuffling the flowers together, but Azumane had been brave enough to do it, so Ukai told himself he had no excuse. Coaching children wasn’t just about telling them what to do; it was about _showing_ them, too. He had no right to tell Azumane to be bold if he couldn’t do the same. 

Tomorrow, Ukai expected to see Azumane and Nishinoya walk into afternoon practice with clasped hands and matching grins. Nishinoya would almost certainly be bursting with excitement and crowing the news to anyone who would listen; Azumane would be quieter about it, but no less thrilled. Ukai would have to be ready, for Azumane to come to him with questions and concerns about his brand-new relationship, because Azumane had obviously identified him as someone who would take those concerns seriously. 

It was . . . gratifying, to be given that trust. 

Ukai twisted his bouquet this way and that, tucking a sprig of Queen Anne’s lace into the middle. Azumane had grown in leaps and bounds since the beginning of the season, his rebuilt confidence shining like a torch; paving the way for the rest of the team. He might falter again, Ukai knew—but it was of no matter. Azumane had already chosen once to stand back up when he’d fallen. And this time, Ukai would be right there beside him.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ukai: no I'm not sappy stfu  
> also Ukai: buys his bf flowers for their picnic date


	5. "don't think for a moment that you deserved it"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: implied/referenced child abuse. nothing at all graphic, but still feel free to skip if this topic makes you uncomfortable!

5\. Kinoshita Hisashi

Kinoshita Hisashi was very good at making himself unnoticeable.

He didn’t speak much, and when he did, it was typically to make a pointed comment at Tanaka’s expense. When Ukai asked for volunteers for demonstrations, the boy somehow managed to fade into the background like a transparent pane of glass, deflecting any probing gazes away from himself with practiced efficiency. Even in situations where it shouldn’t have been conceivably possible for a boy of 175 centimeters to simply disappear—standing alone in the middle of the volleyball court, for example—Kinoshita’s slouched posture and air of slight preoccupation made him easy to miss.

Ukai, whose entire job description entailed close observation and a keen eye for detail, found even  _ himself _ skipping over the boy with a frustrating regularity. Kinoshita never seemed to occupy the forefront of Ukai’s mind for very long; he slipped away from any sort of mental grasp like a stone sinking slowly beneath water. Ukai would promise to himself; he would  _ swear _ ; today was the day he was going to pin Kinoshita down and have a real conversation about his jump floater serves—and then practice was somehow already over, and Ukai was left outside the gym realizing that Kinoshita had somehow evaded him yet again.

It took months for Ukai to realize Kinoshita was doing this on purpose.

It was not simple happenstance that every time Ukai began to approach Kinoshita he was distracted by something or another—it was strategy. Kinoshita would see Ukai coming out of the corner of his eye, and promptly relocate himself so that to get to him Ukai had to wade through one of Hinata and Kageyama’s twice-weekly spats where each of them tried his best to annihilate the other from the face of the planet, or Sawamura about to pop a blood vessel because Nishinoya had gotten another volleyball stuck in the ceiling, or Tsukishima looking approximately two seconds away from walking out of the gym, changing his legal name, and never coming back.

And then by the time Ukai sorted the current crisis, he had forgotten about Kinoshita entirely. A solid strategy, Ukai could admit, except that Ukai was onto him now. He informed Kinoshita in no uncertain terms that the next time Kinoshita tried to duck away from his attention, he would be spending the entirety of the next game on the bench directly next to Ukai, where Ukai could keep an eye on him at all times.

That solved the problem of Kinoshita avoiding him, though it seemed to generate a new, worse problem: Kinoshita didn’t actually like Ukai that much.

At first, Ukai thought the stiff way Kinoshita held himself around him was simply the way he stood. Maybe he didn’t make eye contact because he didn’t like looking people in the face in general. But he was fine with Narita, or Tanaka, or even  _ Takeda _ , which meant that Kinoshita’s general disquiet around him was something that had to do with Ukai in particular.

Whatever it was that made Kinoshita uncomfortable around him, Ukai was determined to figure it out—he was the Coach; he was supposed to be a safe harbor and a secure presence, not someone to be ever-so-subtly flinched away from—but his efforts were complicated by the fact that Kinoshita showed up at his shop every weekend and stayed until closing.

Surely, someone who didn’t much like Ukai wouldn’t voluntarily seek him out? Granted, Kinoshita didn’t really interact with him (he mostly sat on the front stoop and did his homework) but it was still a contradictory piece of the puzzle that Ukai was vainly trying to assemble.

Today was a Saturday, and Kinoshita sat huddled on the front stoop as he usually did, frowning down at what seemed to be a Literature assignment. Ukai, as  _ he _ usually did, was sitting at the shop counter and watching him from behind that week’s issue of shonen jump. Kinoshita shivered, and Ukai frowned. The sun had set and the temperature had dropped; Kinoshita was not wearing a jacket. By this time of night, Kinoshita had usually packed up his work and gone home. 

Ukai shoved himself out from behind the counter and crossed to the shop’s front door. He swung it open and poked his head out. “If you’re going to be here,” he said, “might as well come inside.”

Kinoshita startled and turned around to look up at him, training his gaze on Ukai’s left cheekbone. He gave a polite smile. “I’m alright, Coach.”

“I insist,” Ukai said pointedly. “Can’t have you catching cold before Nationals.”

Kinoshita hesitated, eyes flickering between Ukai’s face and his feet, before nodding. Ukai held the door open for him and dragged another chair out of the back room, setting it beside his stool behind the counter. Kinoshita took the seat gingerly, leaning as far away from Ukai as possible. Ukai tried not to let it bother him.

Ukai picked up his shonen jump again. He set it down. He turned, about to ask Kinoshita if he’d like some tea—perhaps some chamomile would help the boy be less painfully tense—and then he stopped. Kinoshita was wearing long sleeves, but he’d raised one hand to prop it under his chin, and the sleeve had fallen down his arm slightly. The concealer (for it was certainly concealer; Ukai had dated enough women to know that, at least) he’d applied had smeared, revealing a bruise wrapped around his wrist bone.

Ukai was familiar with bruises. Sawamura and Nishinoya in particular came away from every practice with fresh marks blooming along forearms and calves and stomachs. They did not, however, sport ugly, purple-red handprints around their wrists. 

Ukai stood again, and was careful not to touch Kinoshita when he slid out from behind the counter. He went to the door and flipped the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. Outside, it was beginning to rain. 

When he’d first started coaching, Takeda had warned him about this—that there might one day come a time when Ukai encountered a child in need of support that went beyond tips on nutrition and help with receiving drills.

Ukai had accepted that fact, theoretically. He’d heard the horror stories. He hadn’t expected one of those horror stories to be unfolding right under his nose. 

It made a disturbing amount of sense. Kinoshita did not like adults’ attention; Kinoshita knew how to make himself small and unnoticeable and nonthreatening; Kinoshita spent his weekends on Ukai's front porch because he didn’t want to go home. Ukai could’ve kicked himself for not noticing earlier. For not asking.

He allowed himself to be blisteringly angry for all of ten seconds, counting down slowly in his head. Ukai worked with children; had spent months watching his kids grow and learn and crash and cry and pick themselves back up again. Children were fragile, vulnerable, precious things. They broke so easily. They needed sheltering—protection. Encouragement. Ukai was not sure he believed in gods, but he was certain there was a special place in hell for people who put their hands on children. 

Then Ukai took care to wipe every trace of rage from his face before he turned around, because Kinoshita must not be allowed to see it. Kinoshita must not be allowed to think that Ukai was angry with  _ him _ . 

When Ukai returned to the counter, Kinoshita was watching him warily. Ukai wished Takeda were here. This was going to have to be handled delicately, and Ukai had never once been accused of delicacy. He was the proverbial bull in the china shop—but he was all Kinoshita had, at the moment. He would have to be enough.

“It’s getting late,” Ukai said casually, feeling his heartbeat in his throat. “And it’s raining. I’m not sure I want you walking around in that. You can stay here tonight, if you’d like.”

There was a flash of something in Kinoshita’s eyes—hope? dread?—but it was gone before Ukai could get a proper handle on it.

“Thanks, Coach,” Kinoshita murmured, beginning to pack away his Literature assignment. “But I don’t want to bother you.”

“It’s not a bother. I have a spare futon.”

No, his kids were never bothers, no matter how many times Ukai’d had to snap at them to stop trying to raise salamanders in the club room, or something else equally ridiculous. Kids did stupid shit. It was part of being a kid. It was part of being an adult, to handle that stupid shit with—if not grace and equanimity—then at least with nonviolence.

“I’m sure your parents won’t mind. Would they?”

Ukai needed to know now, if his keeping Kinoshita overnight was just liable to get the boy into more trouble. That was the last thing he wanted. 

“No,” Kinoshita said, with a small smile. “I don’t really think they care.”

Now that he was listening for it, it was easy to catch the double meaning in his words. Ukai closed his eyes very briefly and pictured Takeda; his nonthreatening posture and the light cadence of his voice. 

“Kinoshita. If there’s . . . if there’s something wrong, you know you can always come to me. Right?”

Again, that flash of something unnameable. “Of course, Coach. But I really should be getting home.”

“. . . Okay.” There was nothing Ukai could do to stop him, short of grabbing him. And Kinoshita already had bruises enough. Still, it was difficult to watch him go, knowing what he did now. He clenched his teeth and retreated to the back room, digging a cigarette irritably out of his pocket. 

What to do? Of course,  _ something _ had to be done. Ukai didn’t have proof, but he did have a responsibility. Because hitting children was wrong; because Ukai happened to be fond of this particular child and found himself quite suddenly willing to do a great number of probably-illegal things to protect him. 

But those things would have to be done carefully, so as to not put Kinoshita at any further risk. In fact—

The shop door crashed open and Ukai jumped to his feet, cursing. He stomped back into the store with a reprimand on the tip of his tongue, until he saw who it was that had just stumbled into the shop.

Kinoshita was pale; dripping wet; shaking. His Literature homework was nowhere to be seen. “Please,” he said, and that was louder than Ukai had ever heard him speak. “Please don’t make me go home.”

“No,” said Ukai. “I won’t. I promise.” He extended a hand, intending to—well, he actually wasn’t quite sure what he intended to do—but the last thing he expected was for Kinoshita to stumble forward and wrap his arms around Ukai like he was drowning.

“Oh,” said Ukai, and rested one hand very carefully on the top of Kinoshita’s head. He was horribly awkward, and horribly stiff, but Kinoshita didn’t seem to care, apparently doing his level best to burrow into Ukai’s jacket.

“You look like my father,” Kinoshita whispered into his shoulder, and Ukai remembered every time Kinoshita had flinched away from him for no discernible reason. “But you. You’re not. You’re not like him at all.”

Ukai stood still, and let Kinoshita cling to him, even though rainwater was starting to soak into his clothes and onto the floor. He stroked his hand tentatively through the fine brown strands of Kinoshita’s hair, and waited for the shivering to abate.

“Um,” Kinoshita said, pulling away after several long minutes had passed. He’d gone red from his hairline down to his collar. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright. Here.” Ukai was careful not to turn his back on Kinoshita—he had the vague suspicion that the boy might disappear if Ukai took his eyes off him for even a second—and opened the closet at the back of the store. He fished out the smallest set of nightclothes he owned and passed them over. “You’re soaked through. You can go and change in the bathroom, and then we should probably both head to bed.”

Kinoshita stuttered out a thanks and disappeared. Ukai busied himself with hauling out the spare futon, laying it out neatly next to his own. The question now was how much to push: enough to get the information that he needed, not so much that he broke the fragile trust that Kinoshita had just extended to him. 

(Ukai knew courage; knew it by watching his kids claw their way to Nationals even after crushing defeats and broken dreams. There was bravery in Nishinoya’s unwavering defense and Kageyama’s determination to do better by his teammates, and even in Sugawara’s steely optimism on the bench. But there was courage in this, too: in looking at a man who reminded you of something terrible, and choosing to trust him anyway.)

Kinoshita re-emerged from the bathroom and Ukai whisked his dripping clothing away before he could protest, laying it in the sink to be taken care of in the morning. When he returned to the backroom, he found that Kinoshita had already curled up on his futon. He was facing away from the door, but Ukai could see the white-edged ridges of his knuckles where he was clutching onto his blankets. 

Ukai switched off the light and settled down, staring into the blackness above him.

“Kinoshita. You can stay here until—until whenever, I suppose. We’ll find a way to get your things. I have the space.”

“You know.”

Not a question.

“I’ve guessed.”

Kinoshita spoke in stops and starts, whispering the story out into the waiting darkness. Ukai knew there were things Kinoshita was yet keeping from him—gaps in the tale that were tiptoed around as if through a minefield—but the picture Kinoshita’s words painted was sufficiently detailed that Ukai immediately understood that it was unacceptable for Kinoshita to spend even one more day in his parents’ house.

“I’m sorry,” Ukai said, after Kinoshita was finished. “That wasn’t right. Some people . . . some people shouldn’t be parents.”

There was a rustling noise, and Ukai saw the shadow of Kinoshita’s arm move against the deeper blackness. He’d turned on his side to face Ukai, curled up with his hands pillowed under his head. “Maybe, if I could’ve been better—”

“No,” Ukai said. “No. Don’t think for a moment that you deserved it.”

There was a line, between consequences and cruelty. Kinoshita’s parents had treated that line like a skipping rope. 

An indrawn breath that might have been a sob. “Coach, I—I don’t know what—”

“We’ll handle it,” Ukai promised. “I’ll help you. It’s just like—we’re a team, okay? We would never leave you behind on the court, either.”

“We,” said Kinoshita, as if it was a foreign word in his mouth. “Do you—do you have to tell anyone else?”

“I’d like to tell Takeda,” Ukai said carefully. “Or you can tell him, if you’d like. He’s good, at this sort of thing.”

“Okay,” Kinoshita said, after a long pause. “Okay.”

“But, for what it’s worth—I think, if you chose to tell the team, they’d understand. They’d support you.” 

Karasuno, after all, did not take loyalty lightly. His kids had faced scorn and ridicule from other teams long enough to understand the value of sticking together. Hinata, who was small, and Yamaguchi, who was shy and awkward, might have been easy targets at another school, in another team. Ukai had seen it happen in his own highschool years. Children who stuck out, who were different, were not treated kindly.

At Karasuno though, Hinata and Yamaguchi were safe. They were untouchable—because they had a team around them, and the third years had made it clear that anyone who picked on them would face the repercussions. The first years weren’t aware of what Sawamura and the others had done (though Tsukishima might have guessed), but Ukai was. He’d done it himself as a third year, looking out for his underclassmen in the only way he knew how.

That same level of loyalty, of protection, extended to Kinoshita as well. If Kinoshita chose to confide in his teammates, then they would rally around him, pull him into the heart of the murder to keep him safe.

“I know,” Kinoshita said softly, and Ukai was relieved that he at least understood that he had his friends at his back. “But I don’t want them to pity me.”

“They wouldn’t,” Ukai said, but he could tell by the quality of Kinoshita’s silence that the boy did not believe him. Oh, well. That could be something they would work on, in the coming weeks. “Just—get some sleep, okay? We’ll talk this over again in the morning.”

“Thanks, Coach,” Kinoshita said, curling up impossibly tighter. “I, um. I owe you one.”

“You owe me nothing,” Ukai said vehemently, and waited until Kinoshita’s breathing evened out to slide back out of his futon. He set himself up at the shop counter with a few fresh pieces of paper, a pen, and his phone open in front of him. There were legal complications to this sort of situation, he knew. Ukai might end up dealing with the police before the whole thing was sorted. Maybe a social worker. Maybe Kinoshita’s parents themselves, though Ukai wouldn’t mind that too much at all. He’d never had a tolerance for bullies. 

It was best to start preparing now, drawing up plans and back-up plans and back-up plans to the back-up plans. It was not unlike trying to piece together the strongest possible starting rotation, all the while taking into account the other team’s strengths as well as his own. 

Ukai would be beyond tired in the morning, but it was worth it. The adults in Kinoshita’s life had failed him, appallingly so, and Ukai refused to join their ranks. For whatever reason, Kinoshita had chosen him as a confidant, and Ukai was determined to live up to that implicit faith. 

Ukai listened to the soft rhythm of Kinoshita’s breathing behind him, and made a promise to himself. It was obvious that Kinoshita did not trust easily or often; that he had never viewed his house as a place of safety or comfort. Ukai’s shop wasn’t much in the way of appearances—there was a light out in the back, and the floor could be cleaner—but Ukai intended for Kinoshita to understand that he had a home here, that his doors were always open. 

It was the least he could do.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh sorry this one was sadder than I intended???
> 
> anyway Kinoshita's aunt gets custody of him and she shows up to every single game he ever plays in from then on out


End file.
